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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the

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Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters

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Speaker 2: in time. So far in this series of episodes on

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Speaker 2: the monsters of Marvel Comics, we've discussed mummies, mystique and

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Speaker 2: the symbiots. But now it's clopper in time. We're of

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Speaker 2: course talking about Ben Grimm, a human test pilot transformed

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Speaker 2: into an orange rock skin super bruiser by cosmic rays.

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Speaker 2: The other humans aboard the experimental spaceship would become Mister Fantastic,

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Speaker 2: Invisible Woman and human Torch, and of course now we're

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Speaker 2: talking about the thing all together, they're the Fantastic four.

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Speaker 2: Grim's skin is encased in plates of stone, reminiscent of

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Speaker 2: the epidermal scales or scoots found on various birds and reptiles,

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Speaker 2: but more importantly for our discussions here on a few mammals,

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Speaker 2: namely the extant armadillo and the extinct glyptodoct. Though with

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Speaker 2: Marbles the thing, these plates are not keratin, but some

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Speaker 2: form of indestructible rock It's the perfect body armor for

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Speaker 2: the sort of superhero who regularly throws down with the

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Speaker 2: likes of Doctor Doom, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Incredible Hulk.

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Speaker 2: But I didn't decide to do this episode on the

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Speaker 2: Thing based purely on Ben Grimm's rocky skin. It was

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Speaker 2: actually his fingers that attracted me to the big luck.

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Speaker 2: I don't think I'd ever noticed this myself before. But

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Speaker 2: while human Grim of course had five digits on each hand,

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Speaker 2: Thing has only four, you know, like Mickey Mouse or

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Speaker 2: Carter on the Simpsons. In the excellent book marvel Anatomy

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Speaker 2: by Mark Sumerek and Daniel Wallace with illustrations by Jonah Loege,

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Speaker 2: the authors point out that on occasion, special circumstances allowed

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Speaker 2: Grim to retain his human form, including all four original fingers,

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Speaker 2: only to lose one in the transformation back to the Thing.

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Speaker 2: The authors and illustrator here speculate that beneath his armor plating,

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Speaker 2: his ring and pinky fingers are fused together into a

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Speaker 2: single digit, and that X ray imagery would reveal all

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Speaker 2: the bones of two fingers in things outermost digit. I

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Speaker 2: love this detail, but of course, what does it mean?

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Speaker 2: Perhaps nothing, but It's interesting to note that most of

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Speaker 2: us non superheroes can't move our pinky finger without also

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Speaker 2: moving our ring finger, and the reason for this is

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Speaker 2: that the nerves for these digits are intertwined. Perhaps this

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Speaker 2: anatomical fact has something to do with things tetradactyly. It

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Speaker 2: makes it harder for Grim to use normal devices, but

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Speaker 2: perhaps the fused finger aids him in grappling monsters and

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Speaker 2: hurling debris during superhero battles. A natural world form of

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Speaker 2: this fusing, known as syndactyly, occurs infrequently in humans, but

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Speaker 2: is a common feature of some organisms, such as the Siamang,

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Speaker 2: a primate native to Sumatra in the Melee Peninsula. They

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Speaker 2: have naturally occurring webbing between their second and third toes,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes the fourth and fifth toes are also webbed

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Speaker 2: together as well. The purpose of syndactyly in the Ciamang, however,

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Speaker 2: remains elusive, as pointed out by Weisbecker and Nielsen in

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Speaker 2: a two thousand and eight article published in BMC Evolutionary Biology.

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Speaker 2: Past hypotheses have explored the possibility that the web digits

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Speaker 2: are adaptive for the creatures are boreal lifestyle or for

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Speaker 2: use in grooming. But the authors find these hypotheses unconvincing

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Speaker 2: and stress that it might not be a functional adaptive

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Speaker 2: trait at all. A true explanation remains elusive. Thing's fingers

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Speaker 2: are not merely webbed, however, but tightly fused into a

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Speaker 2: single digit reminiscent of say, a whale's flipper, so the

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Speaker 2: comparison is perhaps less than illuminating. We might well compare it, however,

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Speaker 2: to cases of complex syndactyly in the natural world, in

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Speaker 2: which the bones are fused together as well as the flesh.

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Speaker 2: The kangaroo is a great example of this, with its

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Speaker 2: middle toes fused together. According to John Simons in the

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Speaker 2: twenty thirteen book Kangaroo Quote, this seems to have been

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Speaker 2: driven by a change from tree dwelling to ground dwelling,

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Speaker 2: but is now marvelously adapted for hopping. By the way

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Speaker 2: connecting to our core stuffed to blow your mind episodes

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Speaker 2: on the horse, you might find it interesting to know

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Speaker 2: that the extinct short faced kangaroo, including the giant Procoptodon,

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Speaker 2: actually evolved to feature hoofed single digits on their toes

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Speaker 2: as well with the thing. However, Hmmm, I'm gonna have

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Speaker 2: to stand by my own hypothesis regarding the fuse digits

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Speaker 2: that somehow this is aiding Ben Grimm in collaborating time.

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Speaker 2: But I would love to hear from anyone out there

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Speaker 2: if you have a hypothesis regarding the curious hands of

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Speaker 2: the thing. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster

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Speaker 2: Fact each week. As always, you can email us at

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Speaker 2: contact as Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.